Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Uncharted territory on Google Earth reveals several new species

Scientists discover new forest with undiscovered species on Google Earth - Telegraph

A forest in northern Mozambique (southern Africa) has revealed several new species of plants, birds, butterflies, monkeys and a giant snake after scientists discovered the previously uncharted area on Google Earth.

The unexpected green patch known as Mount Mabu is in the middle of inhospitable terrain in a country with years of civil war, so the area has been unexplored until now.

The rich biodiversity is not visible from Google Earth yet, but there may be other no yet explored places, especially in Mozambique or Papua New Guinea that could be found with satellite and aerial imagery.

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Shoe lace tying technique or gadget needed

I got some new shoes in NZ in June. They are comfortable, black and don't have a Maxwell Smart phone in them, but I need a gadget or trick to stop their laces from coming undone so easily. I often take my shoes off when I go into homes, so I don't want to spend ages undoing a complex knot, but I want something to keep the laces done up while I am walking.

A shoe shine guy in Istanbul shortened the laces for me, but this has not helped. Like getting haircuts in Turkey, the shoe shining was interesting and involved fire.

I found this shoelace speed tying video, so I will try this technique, but if anyone has any tips for tying laces so they undo easily but not to easily, let me know.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Cool color tool - search by color



"We extracted the colours from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr. Using our visual similarity technology you can navigate the collection by colour"

http://labs.ideeinc.com/multicolr/?1#colors=ea9225;

Tuesday, December 2, 2008